It’s now been close to two years since the pandemic started and the world is still feeling the effects of covid everywhere. Even with the help of vaccines, hospitals are still overrun and people are still getting sick. Some of the restrictions did loosen throughout the year as more and more of the population got vaccinated, so I was able to do a lot more this year than last!
The start of the year was still rough, the vaccines hadn’t been made available to the general public yet and most restrictions were still in place. I mostly focused on school and getting through my final semester, so my time was spent either studying or playing Minecraft and League of Legends. I did find some spare time to make this little gem though :)
Around the time I graduated, my sister came to visit me in Toronto again! Although there were a lot of things we couldn’t do, we still made the best out of the situation! We ate a lot of take out from nearby restaurants, which was super fun since I lived right beside Koreatown. My favourite place was probably the Korean corn dogs, so unhealthy but so delicious!! We were also able to do a few road trips with our family friend, which was absolutely refreshing since I hadn’t been on a road trip for two years at that point.
Soon after, I started my new job working on Minecraft! It’s still kind of surreal to me that I can work on a game that I actually play but it’s been such a great time so far :) I was working remote at this point so I still had a little bit of time to spend with my friends in Toronto before I left for Vancouver. The restrictions in Toronto were loosening towards my last few days in Toronto so I was able to see my friends a few times before I left for good.
Then summer came and I had an absolute blast! Things almost felt normal in Vancouver and I was able to do so many things like eating out, karaoke, hiking, bowling, the list goes on! Not going to dive into too much detail but it was the most fun I’ve had in a while, and that high continued on pretty much through the rest of the year.
Despite the chaos and uncertainty that is going on in the world, I had a pretty good year overall in 2021. I spent a lot of time with friends and tried a lot of new things, moved to a new city and started a new job as well! Also I got my degree so that’s pretty cool I guess. I’ve made some new friends in Vancouver now as well, so things are overall looking pretty good. Even if it wasn’t the most productive year, it was still a very enjoyable year and I feel like it is exactly what I needed at this point in my life.
I’ve also started a few new hobbies - namely bouldering and playing DDR. Bouldering has been pretty fun, especially when going with friends. It’s a little too much commitment though so I don’t really see myself diving too deep into it - I’d rather keep the fun and social aspect of it as something to occasionally enjoy. DDR is a lot more intense for me though; I went from only having played it once or twice to now doing level 12s and doubles. I honestly really enjoy playing DDR (technically I play pump it up) and I’m sure I’ll get better as I play more!
2022
Now that things have somewhat fallen into place for me, I’m looking to improve my productivity and work ethic again this year. My goal based approach definitly did NOT work last year, I ended up only finishing 2 goals that I had set out, so this year I’m going to try to stick to certain habbits instead. Instead of having a large list I’ll have overarching areas that I want to improve on and work on small habits I can build to help that.
Art
Art is a big one - I was able to continue my streak of streaming every monday throughout 2021, and it definitely felt very helpful in improving my art. A big thing that kept bugging me was that there was no overall plan for my art, I was drawing whatever I felt like drawing from day to day. I think this slightly hindered my improvement and it’s something that I want to fix for this year.
For now, I’ve started doing design projects as well as certain studies (perspective, figure/gesture, etc…). I don’t have set deadlines for them, but the structure that they provide should hopefully help me become a bit more directed in my art and I’m hoping that will help me improve faster. In terms of specific habits, I’ll keep streaming on Mondays, and will start uploading youtube videos going through my art to encourage myself to draw more! This way, there are no specific deadlines but I still feel motivated to draw whenever I can :)
Fitness
I was very inconsistent with running this year, and the only exercise I got aside from that was the occasional bouldering session here and there. I think this would be pretty easily solved once I go back to work in office, since the easy access to a gym would get me to run more - this was the case when I worked at Ubisoft and I’m pretty sure it’ll translate to my work now! I’m also doing some other workouts now to help reduce the strain of running and strengthen different parts of my body - not too sure how I’m going to keep this habit yet but it’s something to keep track of throughout the year!
Korean learning
I’ve started learning korean seriously a few months ago and I plan on keeping this up throughout 2022. I have weekly exercises that I give myself as well as new vocab to study every day! I’ve even bought a few books to help with my studying, so I think this will be a fairly easy goal to maintain as there’s so many things I can do daily to improve.
Programming
Lastly, I want to get back into programming side projects again. This is something that I’ve taken a break from over the past year, especially after I got a job offer. However, I did really enjoy working on my own games and it’s something that would be really fun to get into again!
Overall, I’d like to be learning more from day to day - I’ve discovered that it’s something I really enjoyed about being in school and it’s a great way to spend my time anyways! Hope this year will lead to bigger and better things, here’s to a brighter future!
Some cool youtube vids :>